


Targeting

by Cherry_Red_Ink



Series: Darts and Blasters and Flamethrowers, oh my! [4]
Category: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 14:32:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1691732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherry_Red_Ink/pseuds/Cherry_Red_Ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tarro Blood learns that Braden is intending to join the Great Hunt and decides to lend a hand... until he learns that Braden has hired someone else to do the grunt work, that is.</p><p>Spoilers for Tarro's background and warning for Tarro Blood being Tarro Blood, i.e. a pompous, arrogant jerk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Targeting

When word gets round that Braden intends to participate in the Great Hunt, Tarro’s first reaction is to scoff. After all, Braden is an old man, way past his prime, and his participation can’t be seen as anything but a last ditch effort to go out in a blaze of glory. Despite his reputation, Braden must know that even younger bounty hunters with not even half as much skill and experience as him will be capable of getting the drop on him, which on the Great Hunt is tantamount to death. There’s nothing glorious about that.

But Tarro is feeling generous – if the old man wants to die so badly, he will happily grant him this wish. Taking out a bounty hunting fixture like Braden is just the thing Blood needs for that legendary reputation he is crafting for himself. The thought puts Tarro into a good mood until Sedyn, Tarro’s right-hand man, begins to turn up some disconcerting information. 

For starters, Braden’s participation isn’t secure at all. He has no sponsor and the scuttlebutt puts him in direct competition for Suudaa Nem’ro’s sponsorship with a Trandoshan on Nal Hutta. It is the biggest disappointment for Tarro who had been looking forward to facing and killing the older man for his personal gain. It is for this reason that the Mandalorian decides to play lady luck for a change. Sponsoring a participant for the Great Hunt is not only an honor, but also a question of prestige, Tarro knows. No crime lord, Huttese or otherwise, would willingly risk losing face or endangering their position as a feared crime lord of the galactic underworld by not sending someone to participate in their name. So in theory, killing the Trandoshan competitor and making sure that Braden is the one who indeed obtains Nem’ro’s favor should set the course for the older man’s death at Tarro’s hands. 

It is an honorable and self-serving goal, as in the long run it will help to increase Tarro’s fame and notoriety, and he’ll be getting to it right after he’s wrapped up his business on Ord Mantell.

They are five hyperspace hours away from Nal Hutta when Sedyn stumbles over new information concerning Braden and the Great Hunt, something which is a frustratingly difficult thing to do as there is surprisingly (and suspiciously) little talk about the old man and his plans on the HoloNet. But they do learn that Braden isn’t participating himself; instead he has chosen to support someone else, much to Tarro’s annoyance. This means the pleasure and glory of killing Braden will not fall to him after all, but he is mollified by the thought that the old man can’t be much of a challenge, anyway.

This also means that Nem’ro will, in all likelihood, fail to send a representative to the Great Hunt, at least if Tarro has anything to say about it.

Two hyperspace hours later, Sedyn has pulled of the not so small feat of finding out more about Tarro’s would-be competitor. It is almost as if someone is going to great lengths to hide any information concerning Braden and his hired gun, which sounds too paranoid for Tarro’s taste, even when facing the obvious difficulty in learning more about them. A slicer of that caliber is a costly affair, as Tarro would know, having tried and failed to obtain one for himself.

Nevertheless, there is barely anything about the identity of Braden’s hired gun. The only thing Sedyn could learn was that the old man supposedly hired someone with a distinct facial scar: three parallel lines. It is very little to go by, as species, gender and even the nature of the scars remain a mystery to Tarro. There are, he learns, also quite a lot of bounty hunters with facial scars of the variety ‘three, lined, parallel’.

There’s Cut-Throat Chexi, a Baroli bounty hunter with three horizontal parallel scars under his right eye (said to have been inflicted by a former lover) and Asherel, a Mirialan bounty hunter with three _vertical_ parallel scars, coincidentally also under the right eye and said to have been self-inflicted as an act of defiance against someone else or other; there’s a Sullustan hunter with three parallel scars on his forehead, a Nautolan with three parallel scars splitting her lips, an Advosze hunter with three diagonal scars on the back of his head (which strictly speaking doesn’t really qualify as a facial scar anyway, but the HoloNet is unreliable like that) and over fifty other ones Tarro dismisses based on the fact that Braden would have to be either stupid, desperate or stupidly desperate to ask them to work with him.

In the end, they resign themselves to doing things the old-fashioned way and that means waiting at Jiguuna’s space port and keeping a weather eye out for anyone with the known markings. It’s a waste of valuable, productive time that could be spent earning credits and increasing his fame and Tarro is none too pleased about it. His mood deteriorates further the longer the wait turns out to be and after two galactic standard hours spent loitering around a smelly spaceport on a backwater planet like Nal Hutta, he is ready to just forget about the whole thing and leave when Sedyn spots the red-head and points her out to him. The cyborg knows him well: Tarro does have a thing for red hair and hers is a bright red, a shade almost worthy of being called crimson and it reminds him of Alderaan’s sunsets. 

Her gear is cheap, almost laughably abysmal and outdated, with the exception of her blaster: it shows the signs of intensive care as well as the newest modifications available on a budget. It might very well be the most valuable thing she owns, Tarro thinks, but if she knows how to use it it’s going to be all she needs. She carries herself with the ease of someone who has spent years in heavy plastoid or durasteel armors, graceful in a way that suggests hard training and youthful strength. Her face is lowered over a datapad and its faint glow casts highlights on her high cheekbones, her full lips and slightly upturned nose, her brow furrowed in concentration. 

Tarro feels the familiar warmth pool in his groin. Oh yes, she’ll do nicely. Maybe, if she’s any good, he’ll see about lending her his support. Possibly keep her around for a while. After all, he intends to become a powerful man and pretty women hanging off his arms are as much a testimony to a man’s power as the fear he inspires and the kills he has racked up. Then she raises her head and the warmth evaporates. There are three long, parallel scars marring the left side of her face. 

“It’s her.”

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own any of the characters displayed in this piece of fiction. I am merely bowering them for the entertainment of my readers and myself with not profit other than (hopefully) personal pleasure in reading and writing being gained by all parties involved. If this piece of fiction is deemed offensive by the legal owners of Star Wars: The Old Republic, their legal representatives or the website administration it shall of course be removed with full apologies extended.


End file.
